Contents
Every search typed into Google, every video watched on YouTube, every command spoken to Google Assistant is logged somewhere. That centralised memory is called Google My Activity. It lives behind a single page at myactivity.google.com and spans every Google service tied to your account, on every device where you're signed in.
The trade-off has two sides. Google uses this activity to personalise your search results, your YouTube recommendations, and the relevance of the ads you see. On the flip side, it's a detailed diary of your digital habits, retained by default for 18 months on newer accounts and indefinitely on older accounts if you've never touched the settings.
This guide covers how to view Google My Activity, how to wipe what you don't want to keep, and how to set up auto-delete so cleanup happens on its own going forward.
Overview
Understanding Google My Activity
Google My Activity is the single dashboard that aggregates every interaction with the Google ecosystem. Where your browser only stores the pages visited in that specific browser, My Activity rolls up all your devices and all your Google services connected to the same account.
That includes your Android phone, your iPhone if Gmail is linked, your tablet, your smart TV if YouTube is paired with the account, and any device where you've ever signed into a Google service. As long as the account is the same, everything converges in one place.
Access
How to access it on every device
The base URL is the same everywhere: myactivity.google.com. The path to get there varies slightly by device.
Open your browser, go to myactivity.google.com, and sign into the Google account you want to inspect. If you juggle multiple accounts, double-check the avatar in the top right corner to confirm you're on the right one.
Open Settings, tap Google, then Manage your Google Account. Switch to the Data & privacy tab, scroll to History settings, and open My Activity.
Open the Gmail or Google app, tap your profile photo in the top right, then Manage your Google Account, Data & privacy tab, and My Activity. You can also just open myactivity.google.com in Safari.
Inventory
What Google actually records
Google My Activity organises data into four major families, each with its own independent toggle inside Activity controls.
Action
Deleting your data (manual and auto)
Two approaches coexist. Manual deletion for one-off cleanup after the fact. Auto-delete so you never have to think about it again.
Manual deletion, by item or by range
From the My Activity home page you have two options. Click the Delete button at the top, choose a time range (last hour, last day, custom range, all time), and confirm. You can also filter by product first so you only erase YouTube without touching Search.
For surgical cleanup, scroll into the feed, open the exact item, and click the three-dot menu then Delete. Useful when you want to drop one embarrassing search without nuking weeks of relevant history.
Auto-delete: 3, 18, or 36 months
Auto-delete is the feature to switch on if you want to stop thinking about it. For each category you pick a retention window and Google keeps it rolling automatically.
- Open myactivity.google.com and click Activity controls in the left menu.
- For each category (Web & App, YouTube, Location), click Auto-delete.
- Pick the window: 3 months, 18 months, or 36 months. Three months is the strictest option.
- Confirm. Google immediately purges anything older than the window, then maintains that rolling cleanup from then on.
Heads up: deletion is permanent
Once an activity is removed, it can't be restored. If you care about a slice of your history (old Maps routes, hard-to-find videos), export it first with Google Takeout before deleting.
What deletion actually changes
Erasing your history has two concrete effects on the Google experience. First, recommendations reset: YouTube will suggest more generic videos for a few days until it rebuilds a profile. Second, ads become less targeted, which depending on your perspective is a win or a loss.
No service stops working. You keep your account, your emails, your contacts, your YouTube subscriptions. What disappears is only the log of past actions.
Audio
Managing voice recordings
Every command spoken to Google Assistant or every voice search produces an audio recording stored in My Activity. Those are the "Hey Google, what's the weather", "Play some chill music", or the questions asked to a smart speaker.
Google uses these recordings for two things: improving voice recognition (training the models) and personalising future responses. If you'd rather disable storage entirely, you can.
Disable voice command recording
- On myactivity.google.com, open Activity controls.
- In the Web & App Activity card, click Subsettings or the Include audio recordings option directly.
- Uncheck the box. New voice interactions will no longer be stored as audio (only the transcribed text remains, and only if you allow it).
Wipe voice recordings already stored
- On the main My Activity page, click Filter at the top.
- Choose Voice & Audio as the product category.
- Once the list is filtered, use Delete at the top to wipe the selection (custom range or all time).
Personalisation
History and recommendations
My Activity isn't only a deletion tool. It's also a dashboard for understanding why Google recommends a specific video or result. Three levers let you adjust how the machine behaves without wiping everything.
Sort and search inside your history
The search bar at the top of My Activity accepts free text. Type "invoice", "flight", or "playlist" to find the exact moment you ran that query. Useful for retracing a purchase journey or finding a service you looked up two weeks ago.
Filter by date and product
The Filter button combines two dimensions: a time range and a list of services. You can, for example, show only YouTube searches between the 1st and 15th of the month to spot a usage pattern.
Tune ad personalisation separately
Beyond stored data, Google lets you disable some personalisation without touching storage. Inside Data & privacy, the Ad personalisation section lets you opt out of profile-based ad targeting independently of what's left in My Activity.
Routine
A privacy routine that takes 5 minutes a quarter
Managing your Google data isn't a one-off event. It's a light routine done twice or three times a year.
- Every six months, open myactivity.google.com and review the Activity controls. Confirm auto-delete is still on and the window still suits you.
- Once a year, run a full export via Google Takeout, save it to an external drive or encrypted cloud, then wipe the old data.
- After a trip or a job change, check Location History and purge what no longer matters.
- Before lending your phone, wipe the last hour of activity so you don't leave contextual breadcrumbs.
What about your professional side?
If you run webinars or online training, controlling your Google activity is one piece of a wider digital-hygiene routine. On the webinar-platform side, ask the same questions: who collects your clients' data, how long it's kept, and how to delete it on request. That's exactly what Heatcord makes transparent for coaches hosting their webinars in Europe.
FAQ
Common questions
What types of data are recorded in Google My Activity?
How do I configure auto-delete?
Can deleted data be recovered?
What's the difference between Google My Activity and browser history?
Why review Google My Activity regularly?
Does turning off Activity actually reduce data collection?
One more thing
Google My Activity is one of the most mature transparency tools on the consumer market. It doesn't cover everything (third-party ad servers, cookies outside the Google ecosystem, data shared with partners) but it gives you real power over the majority of your Google footprint. The habit to build is simple: turn on auto-delete at 18 months (or 3 months if you're strict), export once a year via Google Takeout, and spend five minutes a quarter checking everything is in order.